Finished: Begonia

Begonia is finished!  I know this isn't a great picture, but it's the best one I have that shows the whole quilt.

I got the pattern from the Seattle MQG and I loved it.  This is absolutely a pattern I'd make again, and I don't say that very often.  I really like how it turned out and I enjoyed the medallion style of the quilt.  If I had to do it again though I might choose a white background; the light grey didn't quite do it for me.  The Kona colors I used include: quicksilver, splash, nautical, marine, pacific, Malibu, Paris blue, horizon, spa blue, blue, and breeze.

I am going to admit, I made a ton of mistakes with this quilt.  (Through absolutely no fault of the instructions.)  It's been a while so I've forgotten several, but the big ones include realizing I put one of the outer rows on backwards after I had it loaded on the quilter and had just started quilting.  I didn't require a lot of unpicking, but it did take several hours to get back to the same spot.  Then I had started with some cool quilting in the top corners, but by the time I got to the bottom corners I had forgotten and just did some pebbles.  So that was another unload, unpick, and reload.  I wouldn't call myself a perfectionist at all, but these were big enough errors that I wouldn't have been happy with the result if I had left them.

For the quilting, I did a variety of motifs.  In the center I did some straight lines that formed a star.  in the oddly shaped grey sections I added pebbles.  I created some squares and rectangles in the larger grey spaces.  And I skipped all the colored pieces, so they could pop a bit more.

So, while it took much longer than I was hoping, I'm really proud of the end result.

Fading away - finished

This quilt has been finished for quite some time, but for some reason I never got around to officially blogging about it.  Today is the day to remedy that!

I really like this quilt and how it fades into blackness.  While I was pregnant and feeling terrible (seven years ago) all I did was make large strips of scrap fabric.  Most of them were used for a different scrap quilt, but I had enough to make this one too.

I added invisible blocks for the blocks/strips that are missing in the quilting areas, and some wavy lines in the areas that are "supposed" to be black.

It was a fun trip down memory lane, using all the scraps.  While I'd like to keep it, I also only need so many quilts in the house.  I think this quilt will be donated to help with adoption fees instead.  The back, while not shown, is a black minky.  Nothing too special about it other than it's soft.

HI quilt

My mother-in-law is making quilts for all of her grand kids, and my son was the next one up.  Since he knew that he had a quilt coming, he had lots of suggestions for the quilting - wires, spirals, circles - and then at the last minute he also added stars in there too.

I finally figured out a way to incorporate all his criteria while still having it flow together ok.  The Hs got straight lines.  Some of the lines have a slant to them, but wires aren't perfectly straight anyway.  I put spirals and pebbles in the inner border.  This removed a lot of the points when going from spiral to spiral because he didn't want that.

The outer border has loops, but not on the dolka dots.  I'm not sure whether I'm happy or not that he had so much to say about the quilting.

He saw it drying on the chair after the snow pictures and seemed unimpressed by the quilting.  The stars are variegated thread, and one leg always managed to be yellow and not show up very well.  The wires weren't wirey enough, but I think he was ok in the end with those.  He did like the borders.  He also really liked the soft back.  I expect that will make the quilt a winner for sure.

Skyscraper windows

A while ago, a challenge was offer with QDAD (Quilt Design A Day).  It's been a while since I've actually designed quilts on a regular basis, but every once in a while I do and I like looking at the other designs.  Anyway, we were given a picture with colors, as normal, but if we made the quilt it would possibly be entered in a special exhibit at QuiltCon.  That sounded fun, so I thought I'd make one.

Here is the picture.

I really like working with blocks.  I played around with several things until I came up with this block.

Do you see how it imitates the picture?  The dark blue, white and grey are approximations of the buildings, with the sky above and the lighter stuff under it.  Yeah, the lighter stuff all got to be orange which doesn't match as well, but I needed a pop of color.

If you rotate it sometimes, you can end up with a quilt that looks like this:

To me, the orange and light blue imitate windows.

I had no idea what thread to use for this; any color would show up well in some places and hide in other places.  I ended up using Mono-Poly on the suggestion of someone in the Facebook group.  Overall, I was happy with the choice.  It did skip more stitches that I was happy with, but I didn't go back and fix them.  *gasp*

The windows have square back-and-forths, similar to blinds.  They do overlap each other where the windows overlap.  I also quilted two blue windows in a blue thread and two orange windows in an orange thread...the picture above does show that but it might be hard to see.  The part in between the windows has straight lines.

I used some pixelated fabric for the back.

 
I bound it in the dark blue.  I also tried to get a picture with it next to a window, but the sun washed it out on the day I was taking pictures.

This was my August goal, and I finished it with time to spare!!  I'm also linking up with Whoop Whoop Friday.

Urban log cabins

Urban log cabins has been a long time in finishing.  It was going to be for a baby that ended up being a girl...navy is the new neutral, right?  Well, maybe I didn't make the background navy enough but in my mind this is definitely a boy's quilt.  So the top was mostly done and then it sat, waiting for the right baby.

Well, the right baby has come along!  In an effort to take more interesting pictures, my boys and I visited a local park.  It is a bit more work, but so much more fun to find cool places to take pictures.

But I still haven't quite figured out how to drape a quilt on a sitting place and make it look...right.

The quilt features two different color ombres.  (I don't think ombre is quite the right word, but am not sure what it should be.  Two different hue changes?  I'm really not sure.)  The first is up and down, where the large rectangles in the quilt go from whitest to dark green.  It is an approximate...there are a few times I had to flip it a bit.

Secondly, from side to side the L-parts of the cabin have an ombre.  Both ombres use the same colors, so one corner is white-white and the opposite corner is dark-dark.

I debated the quilting on this for a long time.  The problem was that I didn't want thread that contrasted too much in any of the green parts.  And there wasn't a good way to do just the blue parts without a ton of starting and stopping.  So I ended up with straight lines.  Two in each of the big stripes and two in the little almost-stripes up in one direction and two in just the little stripes in the other direction.

Per my normal for baby blankets, backed in minky and bound in sateen.

Linking up with Sew Cute Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday, Finish it up Friday, TGIFF, and Whoop-whoop Friday.

Niece's quilt

My mother-in-law made this for her granddaughter (my niece).  I love the colors of it!

In the square parts I quilted more squares.  However, for the outer two squares I echoed the "underneath" square.  Then I put in a square that echoed the "top" square, and lastly echoed the inside white square.  It was more ruler work than I've ever done, but it went better than I expected.  I still need to work on going at a somewhat even speed so that the stitches are about the same size.

Around the outside of the boxes I did a single echo and then some loops.  I sort of did the loops like flower pedals.  If you use some imagination.

I did loops and double loops on the border.  While double loops aren't hard, they weren't as easy as I expected them to be either.

And a view from the back...the quilting shows up rather nicely.

T-shirt quilt 2

My friend is about to return overseas, so I wanted to make sure that I got this to her before she left!  It is a sister quilt to her husband's.

 

The back is grey polka dots on a black background.  I used matching threads in the borders and sashing, and I like how the yellow pebbles stand out so much.

The T-shirts are trying to escape the dresser!  (Otherwise known as me trying to find interesting pictures.)

Here are some of my favorite blocks.  This one I traced around the continents.  I did it to make sure that there was enough quilting for the batting, but it made it pop nicely.

I have this same shirt and it is one of my favorites...so comfortable! 

This one is funny because my friend lived in a cottage called DeGraaf for a year or two.

This one shows my continued effort to drape a quilt casually yet artfully.  I won't show you all the outtakes.

And one more showing the back.  You can see the border quilting best here.  (Hmm...if you zoom in on the picture.  I need to do a better job photographing quilting.)  Figure eights in the green border, back and forths in the blue border, and double straight lines in the yellow.  For the green and blue borders I used a tip from Amy's Free Motion Quilting Adventures and used a plastic grid and pounce pad to put a grid in the quilt.  This helped me keep everything a bit more evenly lined up while not taking up too much extra time.

edit: I realized I forgot to give some credit for the design (again!).  The original was seen here.
Linking up with Whoop-whoop Friday, Link a finish Friday, and Finish It Up Friday.

T-shirt quilt

Hooray!  Another finish!  They seem to come in clumps.

The T-shirt quilt is finished.

I put a very simple Irish Chain on the back.  I had been expecting to do something very simple, like stripes, but this looked like fun.  There's also a hint of orange around three of the sides.  I didn't have quite enough grey fabric and then didn't center it absolutely perfectly, hence orange on only three sides.  But the orange isn't on the top, so it doesn't feel off-kilter to me.

I'm going to admit; T-shirt quilts aren't my favorite.  I had fun with the borders and the back, but the T-shirts don't hold any memories for me.  I listened to the recipient recall fond memories when I gave the quilt to him though, and it was nice to hear how much it was (and will be) loved.

This ended up being my favorite block after an "oh no!  What have I done?" moment.  I cut the panel way too small.  After weighing my options, I decided to cut another strip from the shirt and put it on.  Well, on the bottom of the shirt was another little graphic.  So I added it and now it looks like it was supposed to be there!

I stippled the T-shirt panels, but didn't quilt over the screen printing.  I put pebbles in the sashing, figure eights in the blue border, back and forths in the orange border, and double lines in the outer green border.  The green and blue borders contained patterns that I hadn't done before and I think they turned out pretty well on the whole.

I did the border quilting in different colors...I thought it would look cool on the back.

My son took a liking to this quilt.  He semi-escaped onto the deck while I was taking pictures and made a beeline to it.  He then made my husband and I lay on it with him.  So we had some fun family time.

I finally packaged it all up (using a folding tutorial from here).   Everytime I made a fold my son put more balls on the quilt.  I think he was trying to say that if his toy balls were on the quilt then it was his.

edit: I realized I forgot to give some credit for the design.  The original was seen here.

This is my finish for a lovely year of finishes! Also linking up with Fabric Tuesday and Linky Tuesday.

Finished - Ribbons!

I'm happy to announce that my baby blanket is done!  I'm hoping to get it to the family before the baby arrives even - it'll be a first for me.  I have about two weeks until the due date, so I might make it.  :)  The front is based off Off-track by Cluck Cluck Sew, but I made a few changes.

The back is pieced.  I do love pieced backs and thought I could do it on this quilt since it is being sent to a hot area and minky or flannel wouldn't be very appropriate.  I got a little bit more fabric, and I tried to use up what I had left from the front.  My back wasn't much bigger than the front, but it ending up fitting fine.  (Phew.)

I did some straight lines in the background orange (using my new rulers!).  I also tried to mimic the fabric pattern in the quilting of the ...buckles?  So in the picture below, there are small pebbles with the small dots, some large circles with the large circles (like the horizontal stripe), and some triangles.  With the triangles I tried to outline the triangles that were present in the fabric.  I didn't do a great job, but it is pretty consistent.  Also, big circles are hard to make circular.

This one shows the squares and rectangles that were done in the crosses (again like the horizontal stripe) and wonky zigzags.  I was picturing pristine zigzags in my mind, but it didn't turn out that way.  Not even close - so I decided they were then wonky on purpose.

Last year I made a boy quilt with orange and put it on the red lilies, so I thought I should do it again.

I kept the vertical color the same...it reminds me of a ribbon with buckles on it.

The binding is just a pre-bought sateen one, but it matched the blue in the fabrics wonderfully.  This is also my best binding by far...I'm not sure what I didn't differently, but it worked!

 The buckles are made from Simple Marks by Malka Durawsky for Moda.  There seem to be two different hues...this is the brighter line.

This was my June goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes.  I'll also be linking up with Needle and Thread, LAAF, Whoop-whoop Friday, Finish it up Friday, and Freemotion Friday.